FATAL DISPUTE BEGAN LAST FALL

Deputies had intervened earlier in disagreement between neighbors over property issue

ENCINITAS 
A property-rights dispute between an Olivenhain filmmaker and the neighbor accused of shooting him to death last week dated back about five months, according to a newly available court document.

Deputies had previously been called to intervene in the disagreement that began in October, sheriff’s Detective Troy DuGal wrote in an affidavit seeking to search the lot where John Upton was fatally shot just after 9 a.m. March 28.

Upton, 56, was a documentary filmmaker who rose to international attention for his work rescuing Romanian orphans in the 1990s.

Accused gunman Michael Vilkin, 61 and once an economist in the Soviet Union, faces 35 years to life in prison if convicted of murder and use of a gun. He has pleaded not guilty and remains jailed in lieu of $5 million bail.

DuGal wrote his affidavit hours after the shooting on Lone Jack Road in Olivenhain. Upton lived in a rental home and Vilkin owned an undeveloped lot and thin access road abutting the rental property. Upton was shot on the access road.

According to DuGal, Vilkin told investigators that Upton had pulled a gun out of his waistband during a confrontation that morning. Vilkin told a similar story to a television station in a jailhouse interview the day after his arrest.

But DuGal said he found no gun near Upton’s body. And at Vilkin’s arraignment earlier this week, Deputy District Attorney David Uyar said Upton was found only with a cellphone.

In his affidavit, DuGal said Vilkin had hired two men to help clear brush that morning. But the two men ran off after the gunshots, and deputies were unable to find them.